Chapter Fourteen

A nders drove east on Highway 101, hoping like hell his gut would tell him when he'd gone far enough. If he needed to, he'd pick up I-90 in Seattle. That'd take him all the way to Boston. He trusted it wouldn't come to that, but he'd go there if necessary.

Jesus Christ, I hope it's not necessary.

The conversation with Delilah had gone marginally better than the one with Potter, possibly because, being on the phone, he couldn't see the way her eyes filled with tears. "I get it, though," she'd said. "I felt a change in you from the moment you met him."

He'd thanked her for understanding. Worst case, if Potter did cut him out of the pack, Delilah would still love him. At least, he hoped she would. Losing Delilah would be like losing a limb. He wasn't sure he'd survive. Wasn't sure he'd survive losing Micah, either, which made no sense at all. Except just the thought brought a stab of pain where his heart should be.

What a mess .

He stopped for lunch in Poulsbo and debated whether to take the ferry or drive around through Bremerton and Tacoma. The ferry traveled more directly east, and it was faster, so it won.

Driving off the ferry into the teeth of Seattle's waterfront traffic, something inside of Anders grew warmer, and he knew deep down he was close. He got out of downtown and went looking for a parking lot. He needed a plan, and the country boy in him couldn't think logically while navigating a maze of one-way streets and staying clear of other drivers.

Three o'clock. Micah was somewhere in Seattle. A city with three-quarters of a million residents and thousands of tourists at this time of year. No problem. Yeah, he'd park, study a map, and figure out what his gut wanted him to do next.

Hang on, Micah baby. I'm coming.

Corbin walked up the steps of SPAM's headquarters on Seattle's Capitol Hill at about ten after five on Sunday afternoon. He expected to find the door locked, but it opened before he could reach out and knock.

Effing wizards.

The room was pleasant enough, the shabby chic interior matching the Victorian architecture. A woman sat at the reception desk, her Goth-lite makeup and hair at odds with her hot pink fingernails, and a blond guy leaned against an open office doorway. Well, he wasn't truly blond—it was a peroxide job like the one worn by Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer . Neither of them looked particularly threatening, but Corbin didn't want to push his luck.

An older guy came down the hall as if summoned by Corbin's arrival. He was in his forties, Black, with close-cropped hair and mesmerizing green eyes. Before anyone spoke, this guy flicked his fingers at Corbin, who suddenly found himself unable to move.

"You're Corbin Blande?" the man said.

His body tense, fighting the bonds, Corbin managed a "Yes."

"You are hereby under arrest for the crimes of kidnapping, forcibly extracting magic from an unwilling victim, and raising a wraith."

Corbin didn't like the guy's tone of voice, and he didn't like being bound. He shut his eyes, intending to shift into something smaller, but nothing happened. "You fuckers."

"Ooh, we got a feisty one," the man said. "Spike, why don't you help our guest into one of the examination rooms?"

Fighting the spell was useless, but Corbin tried anyway. If anything, fighting made the bindings tighter, and they'd only gone about six feet when he couldn't even hurl f-bombs at them.

"What did you think, asshole? We were gonna welcome you with open arms?" Spike laughed as he pushed Corbin over to a chair, then shoved his shoulders to make him sit. "You got the door, Morticia?"

"Yes, sir." Her sarcastic salute was ruined by the giggle at the end.

Spike stood behind Corbin, one hand on his shoulder, and the woman—Morticia, apparently—stayed out of his line of sight. The Black man sat across from him, arms crossed and resting on the table.

"Well, Corbin Blande, as I live and breathe…"

Corbin couldn't respond, so he simply let his eyes glaze over with rage.

"I'm Geordi, but you can call me—oh, wait, you can't call me anything, because you can't talk." His fake laugh could have been modeled after Eddie Murphy's. "Anyway, you called us, which, cool, you know? But where's the hook? Your name has been at the top of our list for the last couple of months, so I gotta say your phone call was Christmas and my birthday and Election Day all rolled into one."

Corbin couldn't even spit at the guy, though he very much wanted to.

"Oh, all right." Geordi flicked his fingers again. Corbin found he could turn his head despite the fact that his arms and legs were still bound.

Geordi and his colleagues might have expected him to erupt in curses, but he restrained himself. Instead of screaming at them, he simply said, "Thank you."

Giving him something of a side-eye, Geordi pulled out a cell phone. "I'm going to record this if you don't mind."

"Go ahead," Corbin said. He was angry, yeah, but the only way out was through. His experience in that stupid black tent had made it clear that he needed to make up for what he'd done. He just hadn't realized humiliation would be on the menu.

After a couple of taps on the phone's screen, Geordi fixed him with a stern gaze. "So, for the record, are you the one called Corbin Blande?"

"I am."

"And is that your real name?"

"No," Corbin said softly.

"What is?"

Corbin thought for a moment. Yeah, he wanted to atone and all, but revealing his true name was a bridge too far. "I can't tell you that."

"Aw, man, that's uncool. Try again. What is your real name?"

Corbin sat silent.

Geordi rolled his eyes, sharing a glance with Spike. "All right, then. What can you tell me about the night of Saturday, March thirtieth, when Brandon Charles and Layla Cross were kidnapped?"

Corbin shifted in his seat. His arms were starting to prickle like he wasn't getting enough blood to his fingers. "It's complicated."

"Dude, we've got all damned night. Now talk."

So Corbin talked, telling Geordi and his phone recorder about tracking down Lorenzo because the guy supposedly knew how to perform the spell that would raise the wraith. He admitted he'd learned about Brandon Charles' gift of necromancy, so he'd hired some thugs to bring him to a predetermined location where Lorenzo would be able to channel his power and raise a wraith.

"You did all that?" Geordi said when he slowed to a stop.

"I did."

"Hmm." Geordi crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "That raises a question. Why?"

"Why?" Corbin's voice felt as raspy as sandpaper.

"Yes. Why?"

"I had to."

"You had to? Huh. You musta been mighty bummed when SPAM destroyed the thing."

Spike huffed a laugh, earning a shut-up glance from Geordi.

"Not really," Corbin said, hoping they could hear his honesty. He was heartily sick of all of this, but before he told them everything, he needed some kind of sign.

"You went to all that trouble, but you don't care that it was a waste of effort?"

Snide sarcasm wasn't the sign he needed. "Nope."

"Why not?"

Jesus, I'm running out of room here . He closed his eyes, hoping he wasn't making a colossal mistake. "I owed the demon Seth Damyan. He wanted a wraith, so I made him one."

Geordi's eyes lit up so bright they made Corbin blink. "Seth Damyan? My, my, my." He all but clapped his hands. "Since we destroyed his wraith, you must still owe him something."

Corbin stared at the tabletop. "He seems to think so."

"Go get Hammond," Geordi said, his voice much harder. When Corbin raised his eyes, Spike was gone. Footsteps pounded down the hall, then Spike returned, a tall, thin man behind him. The man came right up to Corbin, one hand extended. All of Corbin's muscles tensed at once, forcing a garbled groan from him.

"Polymorph," the thin man murmured. "But this isn't his true form."

"Well, let's see it," Geordi said, his grin widening.

Corbin's groan turned into a scream, and everything went dark.

SPAM headquarters. Why the fuck hadn't he come straight here?

Anders stood on the cracked sidewalk, studying the old Victorian that had once been someone's family home and now housed the supernatural answer to the police, the FBI, and the CIA all rolled into one. A small plaque on the front door was engraved with the words:

SPAM Headquarters

TTGB Division

TTGB. Things that go bump. Stupid. Like they didn't even take themselves seriously. Anders had been wandering around the city for over three hours. He'd found a place to park and walked around the neighborhood, trying to judge distance and direction by his highly unreliable inner sense.

Maybe if I'd listened to my common sense instead of my gut, I'd have come here first .

In theory, the place should have been shut down on a Sunday evening. Lights shone through several windows, though, so someone was in there, and the way his gut was setting off fireworks, he knew it was Micah. With that in mind, he rang the doorbell.

No one answered.

Annoyed, he pushed the button and held it, making the chime sound again and again. The speaker above the doorbell crackled, and a woman's voice asked, "Who is it?"

"Anders Montgomery, Beta of the Elwha Pack. You have my mate." His wolf added a growl to his words, and for a long moment, he got no response except for some incoherent mumbling on the other end.

"Pardon me, but tell me again why you're here?" This time, the voice was male, the tone was arrogant, and Anders had had just about enough.

"As I told your friend, I'm Anders Montgomery, Beta of the Elwha Pack, and if you don't let me in to see my mate, I'm going to file a complaint with your superiors."

"What if I am the superior?"

"What if I came back with the rest of my pack and started a goddamn war in the middle of your pretty neighborhood? Now open the damned door and let me see Micah."

Another pause, but this one was silent. Anders stood with his fists clenched, hoping they wouldn't call his bluff. He could get Delilah and probably Willy and Simon to come back with him, but Potter and the rest of the pack would have no interest in fighting this fight.

"Okay." The guy didn't sound any less arrogant, but a buzzer sounded and Anders exhaled for the first time in quite a while.

He pushed the door open and went into the lobby.

Two men met him. One, a bleached blond with a Billy Idol smirk, stank of vampire, but since the sun hadn't completely set, he must have been a daywalker. The other, a Black man with weird green eyes, was probably a wizard of some kind.

"Where is he?" Anders snapped. His wolf paced, frustrated at being so close but unable to see Micah.

"Keep your shirt on," the Black man said. "I'm Geordi, and I run this place, and I tell you what, I do not like to be threatened."

"Well, I don't like being ignored, so neither of us is happy."

The blond daywalker laughed. "They are a pair, aren't they?'

Geordi waved him off. "Look, it wasn't your pathetic attempt to start a war that got you in here, son. We need your help. I need your help."

Anders crossed his arms, wondering what was coming. When he didn't respond, Geordi kept right on talking. "See, your friend, the one you call Micah, well, we know him as Corbin Blande, and as Corbin Blande, he did some really shitty things."

"So?" Anders knew Micah had done things he wasn't proud of.

Geordi grinned like he'd somehow won a point. "The thing is, he's confessed to everything. The kidnapping, the forcible extraction of magic, the wraith. All of it."

Fuck . That's a lot .

Schooling his expression, Anders waited the guy out. Or he tried to. Geordi seemed content to wait for his reaction, so they stood in silence for an uncomfortably long time.

"See?" Geordi finally threw up his hands, his attention on Spike. "It's like I said. He's not thoroughly bad. He wouldn't be mated to a pack's Beta if that was the case, even if they are out in bumfuck."

Anders' wolf growled, the sound escaping from his mouth.

"Calm down," Spike snapped.

Inhaling deeply, Anders pulled himself together. "Can I see Micah now?"

"Well, that's the thing. We're not sure who we're looking at now. He came in here as Corbin Blande, but one of my colleagues forced him to take his true form. Despite that, he won't give us his true name, and more importantly, he won't tell us why the fuck he went to work for a fucking demon and did all that fucked-up shit."

Geordi's voice rose until, by the end of his soliloquy, he was shouting in Anders' face. It was all Anders could do to control his wolf, but he managed.

"Your point is?" he asked, keeping most of the growl out of his voice.

Closing his eyes, Geordi tipped his head so Anders couldn't see his expression. When he looked up, he smiled benignly, as if he hadn't just been screaming. "Like I said, we need your help."

"And?" Anders said, though his wolf wanted him to use a ruder word. "Why do you need my help?"

"Because your mate is going to stay locked up in our cellar until we present him to the Tribunal, and if he doesn't come up with a better defense than because I owed the demon seven tasks , he's going to end up someplace a lot less pleasant."

"Fuck." Anders raked a hand through his hair, weighing his options. He knew damned well why Micah had done all that shit—to protect Anna from the demon.

Assuming the guy really had a child .

Nah, he'd come too far to give in to doubt now. He stuffed his fists in his pockets, buying time. He had a bargaining chip in Anna. What would he use it for? To get Micah out of the cellar, obviously. He needed to talk to Micah, to ask him about the crimes they were accusing him of.

But did he trust Micah not to run?

His gut answered with a definite maybe .

Geordi stared at him, his expression eager, as if he'd already assessed Anders' choices and knew what he'd do.

"Let me talk to him," Anders said.

That earned him a raised eyebrow from Geordi, who parried his request with one of his own.

"Give me his real name."

Thinking fast, Anders hedged. "The demon threatened something valuable, someone very important to Micah."

Those green eyes sparkled with what could only be called delight. "Tell me more!"

"Not till I talk to him."

"He's bullshitting us," the daywalker broke in. "A guy who'd do what he did doesn't give a damn about anything or anyone but himself."

"You have no fucking clue," Anders snapped. "He's nothing like that."

Geordi and the daywalker laughed, making Anders' wolf even harder to contain. The beginnings of a shift jangled his nerves, a frisson of energy he did his best to ignore.

"Okay," Geordi said. "You can have ten minutes with him, and then you will tell me who it is the polymorph is protecting."

Swallowing down another fuck you , Anders nodded. With Geordi in the lead, they went down a hallway, then down a steep set of steps to the basement. It was a large, open space, with an iron cage in one corner. A woman sat in a recliner, blocking the cage's door.

A man sat on the cement floor in the dead center of the cage, as far as he could get from any of the bars. A man Anders had never seen before. A man who looked up with eyes devoid of expression, flat and hopeless.

A man who must be—

"Micah?"

Anders inhaled. The scent was right but…

The man met his gaze, then went back to staring at the floor. He had light brown hair, striking cheekbones, and dark brown eyes, much closer to Micah than Gage had ever been. Anders went to the cage, reaching toward him. "Micah, baby. It's me. Anders."

The man didn't respond, except to make fists with both hands.

"Leave. All of you," Anders snapped, his wolf fueling his frustration.

Geordi murmured something and the woman got up, her long black hair swinging. She spun the lock's code with the pads of her fingers, long pink nails making it more of a challenge. After a couple tries, though, the lock clicked open and she waved Anders through the door.

"Lock it behind him," Spike said. The click that meant she'd done just that made Anders' breath catch, but he didn't protest. That iron would likely keep him from shifting, but given his wolf's current mood, that was probably a good thing.

He kneeled on the floor, near Micah but not quite close enough to touch. Neither of them said anything until the sound of footsteps on the stairs faded completely.

"Micah?" Anders said softly. "Should I call you Micah, or would you prefer another name?"

"Micah is fine." The words were so quiet that only a wolf's hearing could have picked them up.

Anders' knees began to protest, so he shifted his weight to sit on the cold floor. "Look, they only gave me ten minutes. I want to get you out of here, so—"

"No." Barely louder, but it stopped Anders cold.

"Why?"

"I deserve this."

"No, baby, you don't."

"I have to… accept their punishment, you know? Did they tell you what I did? It was bad, Anders. Really fucking bad."

Anders couldn't help himself. He reached out, wrapping his hand around Micah's fist. At first, Micah's hand could have been a stone, but after a moment, he relaxed, and they intertwined their fingers. "Yeah, Micah, Geordi told me what you're accused of. He also told me they want to know why."

Micah shook his head, but Anders kept going. "You didn't tell them about Anna, did you?"

"No." His lips moved, but no sound came out.

"I'm going to."

Micah snatched his hand away, covering his face with both hands. "Don't." The word came out muffled.

"Look, I can't argue that you deserve some kind of punishment, but Geordi's giving you a chance. You gotta take it."

Micah curled in on himself. "If I tell them, they'll want her, too. Jessie's mundane, but there's a chance Anna will have my gift." He met Anders' gaze, his eyes beseeching. "I want her to have a normal childhood, with two parents who love her. That way, if she turns out to have inherited my gift, at least she'll have some peace first."

Anders sat back. He sure as hell hadn't considered that perspective. Still… "Wouldn't she be better off knowing who her father is?"

"She's got a mother and a father. I'm just the sperm donor."

"Fuck." Anders crawled over to Micah, taking him in his arms. After a moment's resistance, Micah relaxed against him. "Tell them," he murmured in Micah's ear. "We'll make a deal that they have to provide her with protection, and that they have to consult with her parents before they make direct contact with Anna."

"Why would they bargain with us? What have we got to offer them?"

"Anna's name and your skills, baby." Anders pressed a kiss to Micah's temple. "You're worth a helluva lot more to them outside this damned cage."

Micah sighed, his body softening further. "I hope you're right, Anders. I truly hope you're right."